How To Fight The FCC On Net Neutrality (Opinion)

[jpishgar]

How will this affect non-american internet users, your suggested note to members of Congress specifically mentions Americans for obvious reasons but will this affect others?

While it may be a little on the assumptive side, the international community looks to the United States to set the example and establish a standard, mostly due to our current economic power. Other nations may attempt to follow suit in allowing monopolistic ISPs to balkanize the internet in a cash grab, providing additional restrictions and trammeling access. You've seen that "content not available in your region" notice before, right? While that currently originates on the server side of things, the elimination of net neutrality is likely to produce those types of warnings on a greater level of content from the ISP side, domestically and internationally.

If so how can we influence the vote?

Outside of the United States, you can't influence the vote - legally. Part of the process of muddying the waters on public commentary received through the online method was actually to point to hundreds of thousands of complaints received originating from Russian IP addresses, effectively allowing those hoping to destroy net neutrality to neutralize online feedback about the issue. I would imagine additional response from the greater international community would be met with increased skepticism.

 

[unclebun]

JPISHGAR, I don't know where you got your idea of cable TV from when you said this:

"Not quite. Most of the offerings provided by cable are available via local broadcast. The function of the cable company previously was simply to collect those broadcasts and improve the delivery of them. You were never paying for content - that's what the commercials are for - you were paying for a quality signal. In our current state of the internet, you pay for signal, and the ads on sites fund the content. But hey, if you really dig the cable model and don't mind paying all those nifty fees, upcharges, and extras for 400-500 channels you aren't going to watch for the one channel you will, then you're going to love where this is going."

But in the US, the only channels available over the air are CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox (not news), and PBS. Some larger metro areas also have public access or an independent station. Not all localities have all of those networks. Where I live you can get exactly none. All the other hundreds of channels have always been pay-only channels--ESPN, HBO, Showtime, FoodTV, HGTV, Bravo, Velocity, NatGeo, Animal Planet, and on and on and on.

 

[jpishgar]

Where I live you can get exactly none.

Now, yes.

That's the thing that happens when you lease the airwaves, and cede the public possession to private monopolistic anti-competitive industries. Killing net neutrality will only cement the monopolistic power of the ISPs who are lobbying hard for it. There's no competitive edge to be had by allowing the segmentation and balkanization of internet access. In fact, we should be pushing for more competitive access availability. A short while ago, the ISPs lobbied effectively to have a series of fees added to everyone's bills to pay for "infrastructure upgrades" and improvements to access for schools and fiber-optic line laid. It didn't happen, but they certainly got their fees.

America is overwhelmingly fed up with shenanigans from ISPs who consistently provide crappier service than their international counterparts at higher prices. More competition here is the answer, with fewer municipalities complicit in the process of edging out smaller ISPs to secure deals for free internet for local governments at a cost of competition. Yes, it saves a small amount of tax dollars on the low end, but the consumers pay for it on the back-end with horrible service and much, much higher prices.

In my area, there is one choice for an ISP - ComCast. At one point in time, I spent 11 hours on a phone with their customer support to attempt to resolve an issue. What's my recourse in the face of a monopoly? More than that, what will my recourse be if net neutrality dies, and I'm staring a doubling or tripling of my monthly bill in the face due to being a newly classified "internet power user"? They're service is so abjectly, remarkably horrific, that they were forced to re-brand as "Xfinity" so they could offer service and not immediately be subject to deserved consumer hate. Apologies, I just don't for a moment find myself able to grasp giving the ISPs more power, trust, and responsibility in light of what they've done and how they currently do what they do.

 

[gggplaya]

Toms Hardware should do an article about the "Pros of Not having Net Neutrality" so that people are actually properly informed. This article assumes that you don't have any data caps on your plan, and networks never get congested. Implementing Net Neutrality will first hit wireless providers immediately. ATT wouldn't be able to offer unlimited directTV streaming. Wireless providers would not be allowed to throttle video streaming services during times of heavy congestion. They wouldn't be allowed to offer unlimited streaming services to get around data caps like my Tmobile plan does. I can stream as much netflix, youtube or music I want, it's just limited to 480p. I love my tablet plan, it's only $35 a month and with as much as I travel it's awesome to be able to have 480p netflix and not have to worry about eating up my data allowance. So Tom's, perhaps research the other side of the arguement, and publish it. I would be screwed if Net Neutrality took place because I don't feel like paying the price of an unlimited plan for my tablet. I'd rather have throttled Netflix.

Also, for my home router, I employ a QOS scheme to prioritize certain IP addresses and ports to prioritize game data over streaming. Why can't wireless providers or even broadband providers institute a QOS scheme during times of heavy congestion?? Say when they reach over 80% bandwidth utilization, allow them to institute QOS by say throttling netflix to 1080p and throttle heavy users. But then, say not allow them to be over 80% utilization for over 40 days per year so they still have to upgrade their network to meet demand. How about some reasonable legislation placed into the net neutrality bill????

 

[rjdriver]

Pai is going to do exactly what he is being "paid" to do. Give local control over Internet speeds and priorities to the ISPs. Make comments at the FCC is you want, but you MUST contact your reps in Congress, as that is where this fight will continue after the vote in two weeks.

 

[linuxgeex]

I realise that you guys think that the USA owns the world, but the Internet is bigger than you.

There's hundreds of countries with no FCC, with no Net Neutrailty rules, and fair market capitalism is the only rule making our ISPs do the right thing.

You Americans do remember fair market capitalism, don't you?

 

[linuxgeex]

Unbelievable FUD.

Believe it or not, the Internet is bigger than the USA.

Believe it or not, hundreds of countries have no FCC and no Net Neutrailty.

Believe it or not, our ISPs do the right thing because of basic Censorship rules and because fair market capitalism demands it.

You Americans do remember fair market capitalism, don't you?

 

[jpishgar]

Toms Hardware should do an article about the "Pros of Not having Net Neutrality" so that people are actually properly informed.

I can write that out real quick-like here.

Benefits of Destroying Net Neutrality
• ComCast, AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner's stock price increases substantially.
• Fewer websites accessible at current speeds means less burdensome choices.
• Consumers will now get to experience the internet just like DLC from EA - buying access to the content you love ala carte.
• Less pesky competition between ISPs
• Sites struggling to maintain profitability will finally go under, thanks to added costs for premium "guaranteed" fast access for their readers, leaving the market open for fly-by-night bloggers and press-release regurgitators.

I would be screwed if Net Neutrality took place because I don't feel like paying the price of an unlimited plan for my tablet. I'd rather have throttled Netflix.

Net Neutrality is already in affect. What you are describing is your cell phone data plan, which gets throttled after a certain amount of data, not specifically on certain types of data. You will be paying substantially more for your plan if net neutrality dies. And even more so for "extras" like access to something as data-heavy as Netflix.

There's hundreds of countries with no FCC, with no Net Neutrailty rules, and fair market capitalism is the only rule making our ISPs do the right thing. You Americans do remember fair market capitalism, don't you?

Right! Like Portugal. Here's how Portugal's internet access is setup.

Good luck!

As for expecting the ISPs, which have engaged in fairly comprehensive monopolistic practices in making deals with local municipalities to curtail any competition, I don't think we're well-situated to cross our fingers and hope that companies like ComCast do the right thing.

Just to be clear though, you trust ComCast? To do the right thing? When faced with whether or not they should do the right thing, or hold you upside-down and shake violently until all the money falls from your corpse? I'm just curious what... like, what they've done to demonstrate they've earned so very much of your trust for this reason.

 

[Martell1977]

I've been on the net for a LONG time (back when PPP was a big upgrade over SLIP etc!)... I feel like the Internet has done very well for itself (and for mankind) as it has been (almost entirely self regulated in terms of policy and governance).

My understanding is that the current net neutrality policy was just implemented at the end of the Obama administration. Even if it was at the start of the Obama administration, that is over 20 years after the Internet was pervasive and full of large corporate players. If, over the course of 20 years, there haven't been very many successful attempts at implementing selective pay to play filtering or widespread discriminatory speed restrictions, why is it suddenly the end of the Internet if we don't have extensive net neutrality rules now? It feels like something we're supposed to be very worked up about because 'THEY', the talking heads of the tech world, have decided that the way the Internet has worked since the start (mostly self regulated) is suddenly in desperate need of a bunch of new government regulation.

Honestly interested in why I seem to be the only tech person who doesn't see this as a clear and present danger because I view the lack of rules to be MORE in line with the Internet's origins and success.

The nature and level of usage of the internet has drastically changed. More people using it, streaming services, phones accessing it. The internet evolved.

I think net neutrality was a response to ISP's trying to charge more to companies like Netflix or they would throttle them. And lets not forget that companies do not pay utility bills or taxes, their customers do. So raising prices for Netflix's internet service means higher Netflix consumer prices.

Whether we pay more for better internet packages (like TV) or higher prices from companies like Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, etc...In the end we the consumer will pay more.

I'm not a big fan of government regulation, but this time, it might be a good thing. We shouldn't be paying for anything more than connection speed or for smartphones, data usage levels(which are bull crap as well, but what we have).

The theory is that companies will compete and keep them honest, but with the artificial monopolies (got to love government regulation) that have been formed, there isn't much competition when it comes to telecom services. The only real choices are cable, phone company, or satellite. And while that seems like choices, they all try to charge the same in their areas, there is no real competition. If there were say, 2 or more of each different type of company, then there would be. I don't see that happening anytime soon. My options currently are Frontier Comm, Spectrum or satellite and they don't really compete with each other, except for reliability. Pricing is pretty much the same.

 

[Zaporro]

Ill just leave this here: https://www.theverge.com/2017/11/22/16689838/fcc-net-neutrality-comments-were-largely-ignored

Call, mail, send a letter, people already did it and it was ignored because "it was just someone's opinion".

 

[gggplaya]

Toms Hardware should do an article about the "Pros of Not having Net Neutrality" so that people are actually properly informed.

I can write that out real quick-like here.

Benefits of Destroying Net Neutrality
• ComCast, AT&T, Verizon, and Time Warner's stock price increases substantially.
• Fewer websites accessible at current speeds means less burdensome choices.
• Consumers will now get to experience the internet just like DLC from EA - buying access to the content you love ala carte.
• Less pesky competition between ISPs
• Sites struggling to maintain profitability will finally go under, thanks to added costs for premium "guaranteed" fast access for their readers, leaving the market open for fly-by-night bloggers and press-release regurgitators.

I would be screwed if Net Neutrality took place because I don't feel like paying the price of an unlimited plan for my tablet. I'd rather have throttled Netflix.

Net Neutrality is already in affect. What you are describing is your cell phone data plan, which gets throttled after a certain amount of data, not specifically on certain types of data. You will be paying substantially more for your plan if net neutrality dies. And even more so for "extras" like access to something as data-heavy as Netflix.

Look up my Tmobile plan, it's $35 per month and includes a feature called "BingeON" and "Music Freedom" which allows for unlimited albeit throttled video streaming from services like Sling, Netflix, Youtube etc... Also unlimited music streaming from Spotify, Pandora etc... without it counting against my data cap. What you described is a normal data cap plan from ATT or Verizon. Net Neutrality would kill the added benefits of my plan, and subject me to the data cap when using a service such as Netflix. This limits my consumer choices for a cheaper plan, and i'm either forced into a more expensive unlimited plan, or have data cap anxiety and not use my services as often. Pai was actually correct on this point.

My Tmobile plan technically violates FCC rules on net neutrality. Tmobile is skirting on thin ice with it, and they believe they can work a loophole by allowing customers to turn BingeON on/off at will in their user page and allowing smaller streaming providers too apply for membership in BingeON. Thus far, they haven't been sued by anyone yet, but if a small provider wanted to sue them, BingeON would be gone.

There's hundreds of countries with no FCC, with no Net Neutrailty rules, and fair market capitalism is the only rule making our ISPs do the right thing. You Americans do remember fair market capitalism, don't you?

Right! Like Portugal. Here's how Portugal's internet access is setup.

Good luck!

As for expecting the ISPs, which have engaged in fairly comprehensive monopolistic practices in making deals with local municipalities to curtail any competition, I don't think we're well-situated to cross our fingers and hope that companies like ComCast do the right thing.

Just to be clear though, you trust ComCast? To do the right thing? When faced with whether or not they should do the right thing, or hold you upside-down and shake violently until all the money falls from your corpse? I'm just curious what... like, what they've done to demonstrate they've earned so very much of your trust for this reason.

Are you spreading Fake news????? That chart looks fishy, the data caps are extremely low like 500MB or 1000MB, seems awfully low, like a satire graphic. Lower than even mobile wireless providers lowest plans. I can't find that graphic or any plans like that on their website. In fact they have gigabit internet for $45 Euro per month, which is super cheap. I can't imagine them price gouging like they would on the plan in your graphic: https://www.meo.pt/pacotes/mais-pacotes/fibra/net-voz

 

[gggplaya]

Really the biggest problem with the internet in the United States is not mainly hypothetical based problems such as Net Neutrality, but it's lack of competition and localized monopolies. Add in competition like the availability of 3-4 ISP's to every household and problems like non-Net Neutrality become even more hypothetical. We need to focus on freeing up the marketplace by allowing people to install more fiber along roadways, and possibly microwave fixed wireless broadband WISP providers, which deliver competitive broadband with low latency: https://www.skyriver.net/fixed-wireless-broadband

 

[husker]

The whole reason why Comcast and other internet providers have so much power is that that the government is involved preventing competition by protecting their monopolies. The answer isn't more government control in the guise of "Net Neutrality", but LESS government control opening up competition in the cable/ISP market. People can then choose the cable/ISP provider with the best service.

 

[jpishgar]

Are you spreading Fake news????? That chart looks fishy, the data caps are extremely low like 500MB or 1000MB, seems awfully low, like a satire graphic.

That's an actual chart of plans in Portugal. Unless you live in Portugal, where there is no Net Neutrality, you aren't apt to see that offered to you.

The whole reason why Comcast and other intranet providers have so much power is that that the government is involved preventing competition by protecting their monopolies.

This is actually true - municipal governments at a local level offer ComCast and others exclusivity in leasing lines in exchange for free internet provided to the local government. The result is a slightly reduced bill for taxpayers who would normally be paying for their local governments to have internet, but horrifically reduced competition in local markets, allowing monopolies to form. The fix is two-fold - prevent municipalities from entering into these kinds of sweetheart agreements with ISPs, and retain Net Neutrality to prevent even larger monopolistic holds over the market. Because right now, at the local level we have monopolies, but at the national level, we have the very definition of an oligopoly.

 

[Giroro]

"We're sorry, no amount of money will allow you to view tomshardware on a Verizon device. Please enjoy this video ad as we automatically redirect you to (Verizon owned) engadget"

Seriously though, net neutrality is NOT a partisan issue, and the so-called right will be harmed as much, if not more than the left.

Comcast owns CNBC. Time-Warner owns CNN. Most of the "liberal media" is ultimately owned by an ISP. So I guess the question is, why would these left wing companies allow their customers to access right wing competitors at all, regardless of price?

That is a very serious conflict of interest and the very real concerns over censorship, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press need to be addressed in very specific language instead of general assertions by Pai that it will magically be ok.

Pai has repeatedly said that increased competition is supposed to fix everything, but he has never once said why he thinks repealing net neutrality could possibly increase competition in a market where it is literally illegal for telecom companies to compete with each other.
Comcast and Time Warner couldn't compete with each other before net neutrality, and they still won't be able to after its repealed, because the regulations granting regional monopolies are not being touched.

 

[ibjeepr]

I'm always amazed at the number of people that say they can't trust the government yet have complete faith in corporations. Because only nice people run companies right?
The government may not get everything right and is usually taking money from the lobbyists of the corporations you are so sure have your best interest in mind but sometimes they actually do something right, maybe even pro-active.

Net Neutrality is one such case. Corporations are paying millions to end net neutrality. If that doesn't tell you right there what their intent is, you're a fool.

For those of you that can't remember. Cable TV started as COMMERCIAL FREE TV. That's why you had to pay for it! Do you watch a lot of commercial free Cable TV now? Yet you are still paying for it. That's how these changes work, that's how they get you.
Eliminating Net Neutrality won't result in immediate changes. The corporations will wait, then make small changes over time, then eventually the scenario in the beginning of the article will become a reality.

Stand up for Net Neutrality now so that in the future you aren't getting fleeced by a company trying to keep shareholders happy and it's CEO filthy rich.

 

[Giroro]

@husker, who I can't find a way to quote

Yes, a either totally open market where competition is guaranteed would work, or a closed market with utility-like regulations would work. I lean toward utility, because cables and fiber are laid on public land just like telephone/electricity/water/etc. Even if open competition were to be allowed it would still be a slow and expensive bureaucratic nightmare to work out the land usage rights when multiple companies want to bury lines in the same spot.

What absolutely won't work is a market where competition is prohibited, and the ISPs are allowed to gouge and impede services to certain kinds of content to their customers, who have absolutely no choice but to pay it. Unfortunately, the ridiculous "bad for everybody but the companies doing the gouging" model is the one being advocated by the FCC.

Actually I could survive if I didn't have access to certain utilities in my home, but I wouldn't be able to survive if my ISP decided the VPN that I need to do my job is now an "enterprise service" that will no longer be accessible by residential customers. I fear that a LOT of people could lose their jobs. The ISPs could legally ruin our entire economy, if they decide to implement one of the many ways they can extort money from their competition.

 

[ibjeepr]

The whole reason why Comcast and other internet providers have so much power is that that the government is involved preventing competition by protecting their monopolies. The answer isn't more government control in the guise of "Net Neutrality", but LESS government control opening up competition in the cable/ISP market. People can then choose the cable/ISP provider with the best service.

You are right but that is a separate issue. The answer is both things need to be done.
We need to open up ISP competition in municipalities and we need to keep Net Neutrality. They are mutually exclusive, you can do both.

 

[gggplaya]

Are you spreading Fake news????? That chart looks fishy, the data caps are extremely low like 500MB or 1000MB, seems awfully low, like a satire graphic.

That's an actual chart of plans in Portugal. Unless you live in Portugal, where there is no Net Neutrality, you aren't apt to see that offered to you.

No it's not, I can't find any reputable source that hosts that graphic, and one source even says it's a tongue and cheek representation of not having net neutrality. Some troll made that graphic and people are spreading it as real news. Don't spread fake news man. Just think about it, they currently have $45euro gigabit internet through Portugal Telecom(MEO), the largest market share ISP, just imagine the outrage if they had to pay $30euro for 500MB, it just doesn't make any sense. The outrage would be enormous. The amount of people dropping the service would put the company out of business overnight.

 

[svan71]

"You see, this is not a question of whether or not internet content should be equally available. Rather, it is the much older question of who should determine that content is equally available: consumers, or the government?"

 

[jpishgar]

Ahh, my apologies, I mixed up my graphics. This is the actual in-place set of plans, with source. http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-portugal-internet-20171127-story.html

At issue is that people would not be able to drop their plan, because for quite a few consumers, there is only ONE ISP in the area.

 

[Giroro]

I've been on the net for a LONG time (back when PPP was a big upgrade over SLIP etc!)... I feel like the Internet has done very well for itself (and for mankind) as it has been (almost entirely self regulated in terms of policy and governance).

My understanding is that the current net neutrality policy was just implemented at the end of the Obama administration. Even if it was at the start of the Obama administration, that is over 20 years after the Internet was pervasive and full of large corporate players. If, over the course of 20 years, there haven't been very many successful attempts at implementing selective pay to play filtering or widespread discriminatory speed restrictions, why is it suddenly the end of the Internet if we don't have extensive net neutrality rules now? It feels like something we're supposed to be very worked up about because 'THEY', the talking heads of the tech world, have decided that the way the Internet has worked since the start (mostly self regulated) is suddenly in desperate need of a bunch of new government regulation.

Honestly interested in why I seem to be the only tech person who doesn't see this as a clear and present danger because I view the lack of rules to be MORE in line with the Internet's origins and success.

There's swaths of fearmongering raking the internet right now, and it's stirring up a very emotional response - especially young people who don't predate the rise of broadband and wireless. I've literally had a couple of people tell me that NN was around for two decades (yes, decades) and now that they're ending it my ISP is going to jack prices, block websites and cut my speed in half. Cripes.

Look, I'm onboard with SOME form of sensible Net Neutrality that prevents certain kinds of potential abuse. But the way they were going about it regulating under Title II was far from ideal, and their rules were flawed. They still need to be able to implement positive traffic discrimination aka QoS for real-time vs non-real-time traffic. Voice/video chat including LTE VoIP, gaming, and even web browsing should get priority over buffered traffic like streaming.

Why would a phone company prioritize VoIP or chat traffic when they are still trying to sell you a landline connection/Cell minutes and even SMS messaging? Even as early as 2005 there were cases of ISPs tying to block VOIP traffic (until interestingly enough the FCC stepped in, although they lost the power to regulate in that way when they lost their NN lawsuit with verizon in 2014).

So say you're a decision maker at Verizon and you notice that a lot of customers are no longer buying a lot of minutes/texts because they are using Skype, your competitor, over your LTE network instead. You have been asked by the company to come up with an "innovative" new business model that will take advantage of your newfound "internet freedom" in order to recoup the lost profits. Your choices are the following:

A:Throttle or block Skype until they pay you for perceived lost profits (which Skype will pass those fees on to their customers).
B:Throttle or block Skype until the customer pays extra money to recoup the perceived lost profits.
C: Both options A and B
D: Raise prices outright to all data, regardless if Skype is involved
E: Impose a strict data cap on skype usage in addition to possibly lowering the user's overall data cap, and charge hefty overages.
F: All of the above
G: Give Skype a higher priority, because it will give Skype customers a better overall experience.

I don't know which option to pick, but I know it won't be option G... Because they would lose more money if they picked option G

 

[turkey3_scratch]

I have a lot of things to say. Before anything else, the Portugal stuff is not true. The images you'll find of "packages" are actually something else. Here is a quote from a well-informed Reddit user: https://www.reddit.com/r/NeutralPolitics/comments/7ers2q/megathread_net_neutrality/dq72bwl/

I've yet to hear a compelling reason beyond mere hypothetical scenarios. It's pretty telling that the only thing I've actually seen as an argument is this image of Portugal's Internet, which doesn't have Net Neutrality. Then you look into it and find out it's nothing of the kind. Portugal does have Net Neutrality, and this is just a picture of one kind of mobile phone plan where certain sites don't count towards a data cap. Nothing to do with Net Neutrality. So unless someone offers something actually legitimate, I'm just going to assume that Reddit is being hysterical.

Now, things to address in the article.

When the FCC destroys net neutrality, will you be able to afford what amounts to protection money to the ISPs to stay at the same speed of access you have now? Will you be able to afford the inevitable add-ons to provide the same level of service you have now?

This is assuming that there will be these "add-ons". People already pay something like $30/month for like 50Mbps down and maybe 5Mbps up, for instance, in the USA. If the ISPs want to milk customers for more money, why don't they just increase it to $40/month? What benefits does having a "$2 Netflix package" or a "$2 tech site package" have over just charging more in general? Unless an actual argument can be made for this, it's not going to happen. These packages would be received with absolute public backlash. No ISP is going to make this decision when they can instead milk companies for their money or more deceitfully just increase normal Internet prices without having a major backlash.

Unfortunately, one of the tactics used by those advocating for the destruction of net neutrality has been to attempt to muddy the waters of public comment on the change by submitting 7 million fraudulent comments out of the 22 million total that have been submitted—even though the overwhelming lion’s share of legitimate comments are from citizens who are opposed to the desires of the ISP lobbies.

I agree it's stupid they don't put a CAPCTHA on those things. But, whose to say people didn't write bots that also advocated for keeping net neutrality?

“Your internet service provider has restricted this content from your viewing at your current level of access. To read, please upgrade your internet data plan to include Tom’s Hardware as part of your Preferred Browsing Package (Comcast’s Digital Premiere & Performance with +Social, +TechNews addons, Verizon’s Beyondunlimited Enhanced Plan w/ FreedomSurfer addon, AT&T’s DirectInternet Diamond Plan, or Time Warner’s Ultimate 300 w/ OmniAccess Web and Internet Gaming add-ons.)

You can make a one-time payment to your ISP for viewing this content up to 3 times in the next 24 hours here.”

If I was an ISP and wanted to make as much money as possible, instead of doing this I would go to Tomshardware the company, rather than the people visiting Tomshardware, and I'd say "Hey Joe Pishgar, we are throttling every single user's connection to your site to the point where it's almost unusable. If you want people to be able to access your site without being throttled, pay us $30,000." Wouldn't this be a much smarter approach?

Last thing to say is that there was no net neutrality before 2014. Things seemed fine to me. I was alive. I used the Internet all the time. I had no packages. And I don't remember being intentionally throttled from anywhere. Granted, I'm sure shady stuff happened, but it went largely under the radar.

 

[turkey3_scratch]

^^This image I don't believe is real. I could've even made this. I'd like to see an actual URL of a Portugal ISP doing stuff like this, not some cheap image.

Want to know how else I know it's fake? Every single thing under "news" is an American news company. It would only make sense for this type of stuff to be under the "International" package since it's stuff outside of Portugal.

You can just tell it's fake also by looking at it.

 

[godnodog]

Hurray for self-regulating industries, buuuu for consumers rights.
Anyone againat this law is a communist!

Ps. In case you missed sarcasm was intended